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final system + essay

For my system, I decided to make a cookbook. A cookbook, that is something more than just the average cookbook. In the end, it became a book of recipes that my mother makes, and the significance of those foods to me. I made it into a binder format because I wanted to be able to add more recipes as time went on, and as more stories and foods become important to me through my mother.

Everything is in Korean and in English, Korean in white and English in black. Every food starts off with a spread with a photograph of the dish, and a little anecdote that relates to the food. The page layouts have a grid that I stick to, certain steps that require more information are outdented and have a little illustration next to it. I wanted to create a friendly, homey, asian vibe to the book, so I played up the wooden floor texture and the simple illustrations. The binder also allows for some space next to the pages when fully open, so I made a little notepad that sits on the right so that you could write down little notes, thoughts or ingredients while you read the cookbook.

After the crit we had last week, I did some revisions. I rescanned the illustrations and played around with using white as a pictorial element. And I pushed the notepad idea.

Through this class during spring semester, I think that I am starting to understand slowly what a system is and how it can strengthen a design if used wisely and with a lot of thought. I don’t think I have ever used the word, “system” to describe anything in my work before, after this class, I can’t seem to stop saying that word to basically describe everything. It’s amazing how systems seem to be everywhere!